Cincinnati Open 2026: regional broadcaster pricing and schedule for the final week before the US Open

Tennis Channel in the United States, Sky Sports in the United Kingdom, TSN in Canada and beIN Sports in Australia. The Cincinnati Open 2026, a combined ATP Masters 1000 and WTA 1000 hard-court stop, runs from Thursday, 13 August through Sunday, 23 August at the Lindner Family Tennis Center in Mason, Ohio. Subscription prices for the four regional broadcasters sit at the heart of the practical question for anyone outside Cincinnati who wants to follow every match live: Tennis Channel Plus from 109.99 US dollars a year with a 77-dollar first-year offer, Sky Sports from 22 pounds a month, TSN Plus from 8 Canadian dollars a month, and beIN Sports with a seven-day free trial that runs from the quarter-finals into the closing weekend.

That broadcaster line-up is the single cleanest way to think about the week, because the four rights-holders stream every match on their own direct-to-consumer platforms and the venue is in the same time zone as much of the field. The tournament has been held at the Mason site, in one form or another, since the late 1890s, which makes it the oldest professional tennis tournament in the United States still played at its original host city. The 2026 edition opens on Thursday, 13 August, and closes on Sunday, 23 August, with the men's and women's round of 16 finishing on Thursday, 20 August, the quarter-finals on Friday, 21 August, the semi-finals on Saturday, 22 August, and the singles finals on the closing Sunday.

The venue, the dates and the wider 2026 schedule

The Cincinnati Open is the last combined ATP Masters 1000 and WTA 1000 stop on the calendar before the US Open. The men's main draw in New York opens on Monday, 31 August, and the women's main draw opens on the same Monday, with the women's singles final scheduled for Saturday, 6 September. Between the Cincinnati men's final on Sunday, 23 August and the opening of the US Open main draw, players who reach the semi-finals in Mason usually travel to New York on the Sunday night or Monday morning, which gives the field a one-week runway to acclimatise, practise and complete any medical checks.

That window shapes the Cincinnati draw. The field often features one or two top seeds choosing rest over a sixth Masters 1000 of the calendar, and the men's singles draw in particular tends to thin out by the round of 16 as a result. The women's draw is usually fuller, partly because the WTA 1000 schedule rewards consistency more than the men's tour does at this point in the season, and partly because the qualifying rounds at the WTA 1000 tier produce a steady supply of fresh faces in the main draw.

The draw shape is settled on the Friday before the tournament opens. From that point on, the practical reader's job is to fix the regional broadcaster and the daily start time, then follow the order of play each morning. The Cincinnati Open's official order-of-play feed is published on the morning of each day and lists every match, court and scheduled start time, with late withdrawals usually announced in the late evening rather than at dawn.

Daily start times in five regional clocks

Day sessions begin at 11am Eastern Time and night sessions begin at 6pm Eastern. Translated across the four regions that carry the broadcast, day sessions sit at 11am ET, 8am Pacific Time, 4pm British Summer Time and 1am Australian Eastern Standard Time the following day. Night sessions sit at 6pm ET, 3pm PT, 11pm BST and 10am AEST the following day. Central European Time is one hour ahead of BST, so a day session that starts at 4pm in London starts at 5pm in Berlin, Paris and Madrid.

The day-by-day shape of the closing weekend is consistent from year to year. Friday carries the four women's singles quarter-finals in the day session and the first two men's singles quarter-finals in the night session. Saturday carries the two remaining men's singles quarter-finals in the day session and the women's semi-finals in the night session. Sunday opens with the women's singles final, runs through the men's doubles final, and finishes with the men's singles final in the late evening local time. Doubles draws run on a parallel but slightly compressed schedule, with mixed doubles played across the same fortnight and finals on the closing Sunday.

For a reader who can only commit to one session a day, the practical answer is the night session. The night session usually carries the marquee singles on the show courts, and the broadcast graphics on each tour usually reserve their prime-time camera positions for those matches. A reader who wants the full picture should plan to follow both sessions, because the day session carries most of the depth in the draws, and several quarter-finals in any given year finish earlier than expected because the night session needs to start on time.

Following the tournament in the United States

Tennis Channel holds exclusive English-language broadcast rights for the 2026 Cincinnati Open. Day sessions, night sessions and the doubles finals all sit on the Tennis Channel linear feed, with a small number of marquee matches also simulcast free-to-air on Tennis Channel 2, the network's secondary channel. The streaming path for viewers without a pay-TV subscription is Tennis Channel Plus, priced at 109.99 US dollars per year or 11.99 US dollars per month. The introductory deal for new subscribers is 77 US dollars for the first year using the code HOT77 at checkout, and the introductory price applies only to the first twelve months, after which the renewal reverts to the standard annual rate.

The cheaper option for viewers who only want the tournament week is a live-TV streaming bundle that includes Tennis Channel. YouTube TV, Hulu + Live TV and Sling TV's Sports Extra tier all carry the channel as part of their base package in 2026, and each runs a free trial for new subscribers. The free-trial windows for these bundles vary, so a reader planning to follow the closing weekend should check the trial length and the cancellation mechanics before the trial converts to a paid subscription. Tennis Channel Plus is the better option for a reader who wants to follow the indoor swing in the autumn as well, because the streaming-only subscription covers the network's full schedule rather than a single tournament week.

Following the tournament in the United Kingdom

Sky Sports carries the full ATP and WTA schedule on Sky Sports Arena and Sky Sports Mix, with Sky Sports Main Event usually taking the night-session headline match. A Sky Sports subscription starts from 22 British pounds per month on a rolling contract, with the price depending on whether the reader takes the full Sky Sports package or the cheaper Sport tier that drops some of the lower-tier channels. The price has been stable through 2026 so far, but Sky revises its pricing on a quarterly basis, so a reader should re-check the Sky Sports pricing page before subscribing.

For viewers who only want the tournament week, NOW (formerly NOW TV) sells day, week and month Sports Membership passes that stream every Sky Sports channel live. The cheapest entry is a one-day Boost pass priced from 14.99 British pounds, which is enough to watch a single session if the reader is happy to catch up on highlights for the rest of the day. The month-long Sports Membership pass is more expensive but cheaper per day, and it covers the closing weekend of the Cincinnati Open as well as the start of the US Open's player-relations week, which is when the men's and women's draws are released on the Thursday before the main draw opens. NOW Sports passes are available without a Sky TV contract.

Following the tournament in Canada

TSN holds broadcast rights for the Cincinnati Open 2026. The full ATP and WTA schedule sits on TSN's tennis-channel feed, with marquee matches on TSN 1, TSN 3, TSN 4 and TSN 5 depending on the day. The TSN streaming app is included with any TSN cable subscription at no additional cost. The streaming option for viewers without a cable subscription is TSN Plus, priced at 8 Canadian dollars per month or 80 Canadian dollars per year. The monthly plan covers the Cincinnati week comfortably, and the annual plan works out cheaper per month for readers who also want to follow the US Open and the indoor swing in the autumn.

Canadian viewers using a third-party cable provider should confirm that TSN is part of their tier before adding TSN Plus as a separate product, because TSN Plus is sold as a streaming-only product and does not replace a cable subscription that includes TSN. Some cable providers offer TSN as part of a sports tier rather than the base tier, and the price difference between tiers can be large enough that the TSN Plus monthly subscription is the cheaper option for a reader who only follows tennis for two months of the year.

Following the tournament in Australia

beIN Sports holds broadcast rights for the Cincinnati Open 2026 in Australia. The full ATP and WTA schedule is carried on the beIN Sports linear channel, which is available through Foxtel, Fetch and a number of smaller IPTV providers. The streaming option for viewers without a pay-TV subscription is the beIN Sports Connect app, which streams every match live on a direct-to-consumer basis. The relevant detail for Australian readers in mid-August 2026 is the free-trial window: beIN Sports offers a seven-day free trial for new subscribers, which covers the entire quarter-finals and semi-finals and runs into the first two days of the finals weekend.

The trial is available to new customers only, requires a payment method on file, and converts to the standard monthly subscription at the end of the seven days unless cancelled. Stan Sport, which carries the Australian Open and a number of ATP events, does not hold rights to the Cincinnati Open 2026, so a Stan Sport subscriber still needs a beIN subscription or a free trial to follow this tournament. The standard beIN Sports Connect subscription after the trial sits in the same price band as TSN Plus and NOW Sports for viewers comparing the four regional options side by side.

Viewers outside the four broadcast regions

For viewers outside the four regions that hold rights to the Cincinnati Open 2026, the practical answer is usually a paid VPN used with one of the four regional broadcasters' streaming products. Tennis Channel Plus, NOW Sports, TSN Plus and beIN Sports Connect each stream every match live on their direct-to-consumer services, and the broadcast feeds are the same feeds used inside their home regions. A reader who already has a paid subscription to any one of the four regional services can follow the whole week from anywhere with a stable VPN connection, which is the cleanest workaround for viewers in regions where no rights-holder exists or where the rights-holder is not yet carrying the 2026 edition.

The Cincinnati Open is one of the few combined Masters 1000 and WTA 1000 events where all four regional broadcasters stream every match live on their direct-to-consumer services, so the VPN workaround is reliable for the full fortnight rather than just the closing weekend. The risks of the workaround are account-side: Tennis Channel Plus, NOW Sports, TSN Plus and beIN Sports Connect each reserve the right to verify the account holder's billing address, and a payment method issued outside the broadcaster's home region can trigger a manual review that locks the account until the billing address is updated.

The handoff to the US Open draw

The Cincinnati Open 2026 closes on Sunday, 23 August. The US Open men's and women's singles draws are released on Thursday, 27 August, with main-draw play starting on Monday, 31 August. Between those dates, the two checkpoints worth setting are the men's final in Cincinnati on Sunday and the draw release on the Thursday in New York. A reader who watches the Cincinnati men's final and then the US Open draw show will have the cleanest possible read on who arrives at Flushing Meadows with form and who is still finding their feet on the surface.

For more tennis coverage from the newsroom, the broader tennis section collects the season's draws, results and previews across the ATP, WTA and the four majors. Subscription prices and channel placements here reflect the regional broadcasters' public listings at the time of writing, and the corrections log will be updated if any verified change to the schedule or pricing is announced before the tournament closes on 23 August.